


What is it to Love?

by LoSzeged



Category: Hello Neighbor (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Family, Gen, Introspection, LGBTQ Themes, Love, Open to Interpretation, POV Female Character, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24130726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoSzeged/pseuds/LoSzeged
Summary: Dreams don't always go the way you expect, even when it seems they've come true. What then do you do?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

It's funny really. How life works out.

While Dianne had come to be known to her children as the 'calm' one, who they had as strength. Who tried to be always kind and positive. It wasn't something she'd had from birth.  
At least it didn't seem it to her.  
It was something she'd learned and strived to be.  
\-----  
As a child, I'd idolise the 'poster wives'.  
The beautiful women they'd show you on magazines, on the tv. Taking care of their homes and family with grace and pleasant demeanor.  
It was so lovely.  
I wanted to be like them.  
To escape from my chains and be like the girls, the women, the wives.  
I'd study them and emulate their movements as I practiced alone in my room.  
I knew from a young age I wanted to be a dancer, a mans responsible wife.  
It wasn't what society would have approved, but they don't see us, or feel us.  
It was a dream, and when it came true I felt like nothing could possibly go wrong after it. We survived so much to get here, and have a family.  
Nothing could destroy it. I wouldn't let anything destroy it.  
So it's ironic then. Comedic.  
That now it's not quite so fun.  
And it wasn't the children that made it so either.  
In preparing for my life as a woman and an 'icon wife', I knew there'd be challenges. But I never knew or considered other ones, that someones health and state of being could fail. Change so much from the way they were when you knew them.  
\-----  
Sighing Dianne grabs the bucket of water and cleaning rag.  
\------  
The media never prepared or showed me what should happen when the husband becomes sickly, or impaired. Mentally, or Physically different. Than how you had even known them. Those things were never shown. We didn't have any guidance for that sort of thing. But, you know, it's fine. We didn't have guidance for alot of things. And we turned out fine.  
\-----  
It wasn't.  
At first she'd thought maybe it was drugs.  
His balance got atrocious, and shook, developing accidents, loss of appetite, loss of focus, terrible shifts of mood, anger. it was frightening sometimes, when it wasn't frustrating.  
He must be doing something to have these problems. He'd never had them before.  
Then came the diagnosis when it got too serious and she'd finally had enough and convinced him to go get checked by the doctors.  
That was like getting struck with a demolition ball.  
He threw up daily and was a mess at that point.  
The circumstances forced Dianne to rethink their future, and to get a new type of job, something that'd be more 'sustainable', in the event he got worse, could no longer work or passed away  
(he insisted he wouldn't and was 'fine' even when he wasn't, but she wanted to be sure they had something to fall back on.)  
It's not like this started and he was already old.  
Late 20s, with 2 young children for this sort of thing to come on, wasn't old. But it certainly did make him seem it faster. Even after hope was given in the form of completed treatments, the hope of things getting better lasted only a short time, while his personal health problems lessened, accidents from the work he'd designed quickly struck.  
They escaped consequence from it once, but the second time cost him his job.  
And his condition stayed hung below the normal she had expected he would return to.  
\-------  
This wasn't quite the life Dianne had expected or wanted to lead. Gone down paths far less glamourous. Or ideal.  
Theodore hadn't worked in a few years now, since the last accident, she held a teaching job at the Raven Brooks elementary school, and between it, the public and home, well…  
It's isolating.  
Keeping these experiences hidden.  
Not speaking or showing of fatigue, never tell of the challenges faced. That they were anything different, something other than perfect.  
If you keep your face, and you look it, perfect, in front of others. Then no matter what happens behind the curtains off-stage, you are the image they know of you on it, and that's the thing that mattered most, isn't it?


	2. Chapter 2

She'd thought about leaving.  
Especially in the past year.  
Not out of malice exactly. Just wonder. Whim.  
A daydream of what could've been, or what could be.  
Staring off into the sky, her thoughts so far removed from her surroundings, somewhere far from here, and the prisons of these buildings, on the roads again.   
She hadn't thought she'd miss them.  
At first when she'd begun to explore the thoughts and wander out into them freely, she'd questioned if it were another man she was with.  
But no, that's a dream of what it could've been. That's how different Theo had become.  
He was no longer the same one she'd met years ago. More often than not, he was like someone else.  
Focusing on these dreams was pleasant in that way. It offered an escape from Raven Brooks, a feeling that things weren't really so far removed from what they showed.  
A world part of theirs but not.  
Where she didn't feel so much like a caretaker, and she could just be a wife and free.

\-------

"...?"  
Poking her head around the corners of the house after getting home, Dianne wonders if Theodore were still in that basement he'd been spending so much time in.  
"hh…."  
She'd set dinner on the table already, gotten Aaron and Mya and told them to go ahead and start if they'd like.  
Did he go somewhere on foot maybe?  
Partly curious, partly indecisive, Dianne bites her lip, opening the door to the basement, descending the stairs into the dark, she ducks slightly through the doorway into the open area.  
She didn't come down here often, he was quite private about what it was he'd been doing down here, in terms of, she figured, renovating and stuff. To keep his mind off things and busy.  
Glancing through the large doorway into a dark hall and room, she opens the door in front of her, to an empty room, and then to another.  
Blinking her eyes at the blue/purple sweater that catches them first.  
"oh."  
He doesn't notice right away that she'd come in, fixated on something in the old bathtub in the middle of the room. His head turned at a pensive angle.  
"um.." Dianne tentatively tries waving a hand, "Theo?"  
He flinches and twitches initially, settling his gaze on her. "Dan."  
•"Dinners ready. I just came down to, see what you were doing."•  
She explains, wondering what he'd been staring at.  
"mm…" Theodore straightens slightly, "Ducks."  
"....What?"  
He lightly cocks his head, "I got a hundred ducks."  
"..." ("er...Why?") Was what came to mind, steeping forwards, "You…"   
Dianne notices the boxes placed on the side of the room, "Bought them?"  
To be honest she wasn't sure if he'd meant live ones or not.  
"mm."  
Twitching again, his expression placid, she takes it that he didn't mind if she came closer, so does,  
Seeing the set of about 12 rubber ducks currently floating in the tub, Dianne looks between their oblivious bobbing and Theodore, glad she doesn't need to ask as he offers an explanation;  
"I plan on making them swim."  
"....." what? "oh." Dianne notes curiously, •"With-?"•  
"mechanics."  
Theodore states not fully looking at her, "propeller. I'm thinking maybe feet."  
"... That's cool."  
She nods, showing no sign of her internal questioning of logic or reason. As he seems involved with this idea, smiling oddly, and gesturing with his hands, "You know, paddling."  
"Yes."  
Dianne hadn't wanted to seem disinterested, but did have to wonder,  
•"Did you want to come up and eat?"•  
"mm?"  
he turns his focus to her fully, so, she repeats the signed question.  
"mmm…."  
Theodore lowers his gaze slightly pensive, "Is, Ni.. Nicholas. Aarons friend, here?"  
"oh-" •"No, not today."•  
"mm."  
"...."  
He'd declined, so she took the answer as fine and went back upstairs, leaving him alone again.


End file.
